Firstly I’m sure you all noticed that cerberus appeared on flee bay this week.I had a brain storm and put Cerberus back on flee bay to get a good summer valuation.When I last put her on flee bay it was the end of March and wasn’t the correct time to get a good price.Last time the bidding went up to £28kThis time around the auction ended at £28400. I still scratch my head on how people think there going to buy a murcielago for 5 grand. It’s not going to happen. Any real murcielago is up for sale around 200k so what makes them think a kit car one is worth only 5. I’d sell them 2 wheels for that. So this finally proves that these kit cars are worth a lot more than most people think.There not little Ferrari 355s or DNA replicas. Our extreme lambos are something far more special. Even to this day I have to sometimes pinch myself stand back and just look at her. Yep I own a lambo. Yes ok a kit car one but it’s still a lambo.

So this week it’s finally MOT time again.Yes it’s been a year already.I had to get her ready for the dreaded test of doom. I had a few worries especially with this new MOT that has come out.I gave her a good service to include new plugs and oil.I checked everything to make sure it was all up to scratch. I have only completed 700 miles in her since the last MOT.As before I booked her in at the Ferrari garage in Windsor.I must admit they carry out the strictest mot I’ve ever seen but as they deal with 200mph cars it has to be.They miss nothing and notice everything. No messing.

She looked fantastic parked next to 3 Ferrari’s. Not out of place at all.She gets a lot of attention at the garage and they are amazed at how good a job I have done restoring her.I suppose my attention to detail is abit of a obsession. It has to be perfect or not at all. It’s so good they think she’s better than some real ferraris they have.

Well she passed with flying colours and no advisories. She’s 100%. Not a single thing wrong.

Now that the MOT is out of the way I can carry out a few upgrades.I want to fit some hid xenon headlights. The H1 halogen bulbs are crap and you can’t see bugger all when driving in the dark. I need to keep the fitment simple as they will have to be removed for the MOT next year.I would like to fit a small subwoofer in side somewhere as I feel that the stereo could do with alittle more bass.I’m also tempted to modify the exhaust alittle to make her even more bonkers than she already is.So more then.

Glad to see that you are enjoying the car !I picked up your posts form the ebay advert but didnt bid as i could see from before that you are attached to the car and probably looking more for an indicative value than an actual sale.

Think youve done a cracking job on the car so far !

I dont actually own a replica but have toyed with the idea a few times as ido have the real thing but you get caught in a situation of not actually driving it stupidly enough.My thoughts were to possibly pick up a replica also to have some fun in

Keep us updated with how you get on as i will deff be reading this from now on - if you need any info etc on how the setup from the factory is let me know and ill take a look for you.

Time for a update.Well firstly I don’t know if I’m supposed to rave on or moan about the weather we are having at the moment.As it has not rained now for over a month and every day is around 30 degrees the lambos been out nearly every day. But it’s to hot to work and sleep. Anyways now that the dreaded mot is out of the way it’s time for a few anti mot modifications.My first job is to dump the exhaust silencer.Yes it’s loud with the cherry bomb fitted but on tick over it sounds just like a mr2. Not enough rumble for my liking so it’s time to dump the bomb and straight pipe the beast.Off comes the exhaust. Nice and easy. I chop off the bomb using the angle drinder.I brought a length of steel 3” straight pipe to replace the silencer with. Once everything’s cut to length everything slots together nicely.I refit the exhaust and fit everything up and tack weld the pipe into position.Now everything’s ready to completely weld the exhaust up.Once welded all the way round I give it a coat of vht paint. I then finally refit the exhaust back on to the car.Well the moment of truth. Time to start her.Vroommm. Into life. Oh yes that’s better. It now just rumbles on tick over. It still has silencers in the tips of the exhausts somit does not sound crap. Like a ricer without any exhaust at all.More like a super bike ticking over.So let’s take her out for a spin. You can really hear the turbo spooling up but when she goes. By god it’s loud! When you decelerate the car burbles away happily. You even get the odd pop. When you give her the beans and take the revs up around the 10k Rev limit she sounds just completely mental Very similar to a super bike on the Isle of Man TT That’s more like it. So now the exhaust is done it’s time to upgrade the headlights.When I last drove her at night the lights were so crap it was just dangerous. You’d get more light using a fag lighter out of the window.As they are officially banned mot wise unless there factory fit now I have to fit them in such a way they can be easily swapped over for MOTs.My bulbs are H1 so I brought a 6000k white light HID kit.Loads of room to hide all the ballasts and connections inside my headlights.But easily unplugged and a crap H1 bulb can be fitted for any mot in the future.I also replaced the little cap sidelight with a white light LED bulb. As the side lights are yellow and the hids are white light. Having a white side light to match is a better match.Once fitted I re seal up the headlight backs again.I do exactly the same for the other side.So now I will have some proper light when I drive in the dark in the future.Thats if for mods at the moment. I’ve got another car show to take her to next week so more then.

Time for a update.Well now that the HID bulbs were fitted I was hoping that was the last of it.Or so I thought.I left the car out to get a suntan earlier on in the week and ended up having a problem.It has been so hot the drivers side headlight lens actually melted.Because these aftermarket lenses have been vacuumed formed out of low temperature Perspex it doesn’t take much heat to soften the lenses.So the drivers side looked like somebody had sat on it. It was quite badly bowed inwards.I had 2 choices. Remove the lens and see it I could straighten it using a heat gun or replace both of the lenses with glass.When I first brought the car it had glass lenses but they look crap hence why I opted for new plastic lenses.So I decided to remove the distorted lens.I heated the lens using a heat gun. Resting it on the carpet so it’s nice and flat.After a while the lens became flat again.But it’s not perfect. It’s still slightly distorted but good enough until I get some replacements. I refitted the lens and sealed all around it again using tiger seal.It’s not noticeable unless you run your hand over it and you can feel the ripples.So it will suffice for now.For the future the car must not sit in the sun with the lights exposed for a length of time. That’s it for this week.I have a few niggles to sort out and I plan to make a few YouTube movies of the car soon so you can see her in action.So more then.

Time for a update.Well it’s been a while since my last post so it’s time to update you all on what’s been happening.As we all know that we are still basking in hot weather and we haven’t seen rain since the end of May.It’s getting hotter and hotter and unfortunately cerberus has been suffering with the heat as well.Whilst out in the hot sunny weather in traffic my clutch had started to play up again.It got to a point where I almost couldn’t change gear and the clutch was biting at traffic lights.It was time to replace the clutch master cylinder.Fortunately on the mr2 it’s a easy job to remove. 2 nuts and a spring clip and it’s out.Rather than getting another nackered master cylinder from the scrappie Toyota sell a rebuild kit to make it like new again.Very easy to repair. A simple circlip and it pops apart.Once it was rebuilt I refitted the master cylinder into the car.The next difficult task was to bleed the system. The problem doing this is that the reservoir is so small. 2 pumps and it’s empty.It took me ages to get all the air out but I got there in the end.Sorted. The clutch felt great again. Or so I thought.Now when the engine was ticking over and you press the clutch I got a squealing sound.Wtf! Even on the road, you change gear and you get a squeal as you press the clutch.This one was very worrying. It sounded like the clutch bearing was failing and the bearing was squealing.I had my mechanic friend pop over and he confirmed that it was the clutch bearing.Shit! Now in a normal car this wouldn’t be a problem but in the lambo there is no room to split the gearbox so it was going to be have to be engine out again.Nightmare!So that was the end of the summer for me and the car. One evening I decided to take a second look and got the wife to press the clutch while I laid under the car when it was ticking over. I bet she thought about driving off the axle stands when I was lying there. LOLIt was squealing away. I was busy prodding around with a screwdriver and remembered I heard that sound before. It sounded exactly the same as a chain rubbing agains a chain guard.Weird! As there’s no chain.I jammed my screwdriver in between a metal plate under the gearbox and suddenly the noise stopped.WTF!I released the plate again and the noise returned. So I removed the small metal plate and there was the evidence I was looking for.There was rubbing marks on the plate where the flywheel rubs against the plate when you press the clutch.This plate must somehow much have become distorted with the heat.So I gave it a good beating with a hammer to make sure it cleared the flywheel.Once refitted the noise has now totally gone.So the clutch is now as good as new.Phew. That was a lucky escape. I really didn’t want to take that engine out again.

Now with the car all fixed I took cerberus out for a evening meal with the wife.As we were out till late I finally got to test the HID xenon lights.There fantastic. I can now see where I’m going down a pitch dark road. Finally.As always the car draws a crowd in the car park as people want to watch me drive off.

I have decided that Cerberus could do with a little tweek performance wise but need to upgrade a few things first.I need to fit a bigger intercooler for the turbo and need to fit a big oil cooler to keep the temperature down when under higher boost.According to mr2 experts I could increase the bhp to around 300 without to much trouble as long as I do these mods first.So more when I carry out these mods.

Time for a update.As we have been basking in a 30 degrees plus heatwave I decided to take a week off work. So this means I’ve had time to start fitting the performance modifications so I can increase the power of Cerberus.So I started with stripping the car down by removing the turbo pipe work and old intercooler.Upon removal of the old intercooler I found out that it was on its last legs and isn’t up to much cooling any more.I plan is to fit a much larger intercooler behind the engine where I have a large area free. The intercooler fans will draw the air up from the floor and discharge it over the engine.I also need a oil cooler. As this MR2 generates a large amount of heat from the turbo it requires a big oil cooler.The MR2 does have a very basic cooler which works using the engine coolant but is no way big enough when running high boost pressures.I plan to mount the oil cooler where the old intercooler was which is vented from the drivers side lower air duct. The intercooler I have brought is the biggest I can fit in the engine bay. So it’s time to make a suitable mount.It’s quite a heavy cooler with the fans fitted so it needs a sturdy mount.I cover the cooler with masking tape to protect the vains on the cooler.I offer up the new tubing to make sure I have all the correct lengths of piping.Yep so I put them aside for later.After a lot of balancing on blocks of wood I manage to get a idea on where it can be mounted.Further down below is the rear engine mounting so is a perfect place to take a sold fixing from.Using some thick strong steel strip I cut and weld a triangle frame so the intercooler can fix to it.Once welded I give it a coat of paint.I bolt the finished triangle frame to the engine mounting bolts and sit the intercooler on to it.Perfect. Now that the weight of the intercooler is supported all that’s needed is a support on the top to keep it in place.For this I use some aluminium strip.I make a simple T piece bracket so the top of the intercooler can be bolted to the back of the car.Once all bolted the intercooler is solid and ready for plumbing in.But I have to fit the oil cooler first so I remove it all again.Now for the oil cooler I have brought a big 30 row aluminium cooler. Perfect for cooling that oil going around the turbo.It’s a close size to the old intercooler so fitting it shouldn’t be a problem.I remove the old brackets and weld up some steel box section and steel strip to the old bracket.This will take the weight of the cooler and mount it perfectly in position.Once welded I give the bracket a coat of paint.I will now let it dry over the weekend.When I mount the oil cooler I will need to make a top support so I will make one next week.More to follow next week.

Time for this weeks update.I have been carrying on with the extra cooling modifications this week.Now that I have made the intercooler mounting brackets it’s time to finish off the oil cooler bracket.After giving the oil cooler base mounting a coat of paint I make a top mounting bracket out of aluminium.I then mount the kenlowe fan on to the oil cooler.Once everything’s mounted it’s time to get the oil pipes made. A visit to a hydraulic hose company sorts that out. I opted for industrial hoses with a larger bore so the oil can circulate quicker.Once fitted I then fit the oil cooler into position.Perfect fit with the kenlowe fan hidden inside the air vent. To fit a oil cooler to a mr2 you need a oil take off? The best and easiest method is to use a oil filter sandwich plate. This fits between the oil filter and the engine. This is a perfect fit as having a racing exhaust manifold moves the exhaust out of the way and leaves enough room for the hydraulic pipes.Now for the dipstick. With the oil cooler sandwich plate fitted there’s now no where to fit the dipstick.As it simply swivels around when unbolted I make alittle bracket to hold the dipstick in its new location.Everything fits perfectly. A oil cooler this big should provide plenty of cooling.My next job is to fit the intercooler fans. I have fitted 2 kenlowe fans to push the air through the intercoooler.Once fitted I then mount the intercooler into the car. I made a small heat sheld out of some aluminium angle to help keep the exhaust heat away from the fans. My next task is to plumb it all up. I’ve used 2.5” tubing on the inlet and 3” tubing on the outlet to the engine.Takes a little time to get all the bends and angles cut correctly.As the power is going to be increased the mr2 Turbo suffers from oil blow back. This is when oil comes out of the oil breather and back into the turbo inlet. To stop this you require a oil catcher bottle. So I fitted a nice large aluminium one.Perfect.With all this extra plumbing and chrome the engine bay is now full and looks fantastic.There’s a lot of pipes in there now.Looks like a work of art. To finish all this off I need to fit the wiring so I can control the fans from inside the car. I’m also fitting a turbo boost switch so when pressed it bleeds off the actuator making the turbo work harder giving more boost and then more power.So more next week.

Time for a quick update.Now that all the extra cooling is fitted all that was left was to wire the fans up.I’ve decided to control the intercooler and oil cooler fans from a switch on the dash.It’s better that way so I can have them switched off whilst the cars warming up or just ticking over whilst working on her.I’ve taken a feed direct from the battery so the fans can run on without the engine running. Just to take some of the heat away when packing the car away.

This week was the Royal County Car Club August evening meeting at the Shire Horse Pub in Littlewick Green, Maidenhead.I was hoping to see one of you lot there as I posted the meet details in another forum on here.But hey ho. I guess your all to far away to travel.Anyway the weather was still good so the turn out was fantastic.Loads of different cars.As always cerberus draws a crowd and attracts a lot of attention.

I managed to take the car for a good motorway trip today and the extra cooling is a complete success.Before sitting at a steady 70 mph the temperature gauge used to sit quite high until I dropped back to to 50.Now with the extra cooling 70 is perfect. Cruising away in 5th with the temperature bang in the middle.One thing I do love is when you give her some beans you can really hear the air rushing through the intercooler.So you know something is going on proper.

I’ve got a few extra mods to fit and a car show on Saturday weather permitting so more then.